Mobile messaging system and method

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for messaging with mobile devices (e.g., cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs)) and, more particularly, to systems and methods for messaging multiple media with mobile devices.

1 . A method for messaging media between a sender and one or more recipients, said method comprising: 
 receiving a media message intended for communication to said one or more recipients;    storing said media message as a document remotely from user equipment of said sender and said one or more recipients;    communicating said media message to said one or more recipients; and    maintaining said document in said remote storage subsequent to said communicating.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising designating said sender and said one or more recipients as participants in said document, thereby creating an association between said sender and said one or more recipients.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said receiving said media message comprises receiving a media message comprising two or more media types selected from the group of media types consisting of text, image, audio, and video.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said user equipment of at least one of said sender and said one or more recipients is a mobile device.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 providing access to a document participant to said document; and    in response to a request from the document participant, modifying said accessed document or remotely storing a new document comprising multimedia content from said accessed document.    
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 providing a capability whereby a first document participant can write to said document by submitting a response; and    providing a capability whereby a second document participant can write simultaneously to said document by submitting a response.    
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising granting access rights to said document to a subset of users based on a predefined criteria.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein at least one of said received message and said communicated message comprises a short code that abbreviates the coded structure of a coded tree or sub-tree.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising defining said short code.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 receiving a request for said document from a document participant, wherein said document comprises a plurality of fragments; and    transmitting only a portion of said fragments to said document participant in response to said request.    
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein communicating said message to said one or more recipients comprises delivering said message as inline compressed ASCII encoded binary assets.  
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein communicating said message to said one or more recipients comprises: 
 maintaining an idle communication state with a recipient prior to receiving said message;    in response to receiving said message, transmitting a notification to said recipient indicating the availability of said message; and    communicating said message to said recipient in response to receiving a request for said message from said recipient.    
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising receiving a request for an update to information associated with said document from a document participant, wherein said request is received simultaneously with one or more additional requests in the same call.  
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 receiving syndicated content from a syndicated content server;    storing said syndicated content remotely from said document participants; and    providing said syndicated content to at least one of said document participants.    
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising providing a document participant with document-level presence information selected from the group of document-level presence information consisting of information indicating whether the document has changed, and information identifying the document participant(s) currently accessing said document.  
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 tagging said message with meta-information prior to storing said message (with said meta-information) as said document; and    allowing a document participant to search remotely stored documents based on said meta-information.    
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising providing a document participant with push-to-message functionality selected from the group of functionality consisting of sending a message to another document participant that is currently offline, scheduling delivery of a message for a specified date, time and/or geographic location, and connecting to another document participant in a real-time environment when said another document participant retrieves a message.  
   
   
       18 . A method for messaging media between a sender and a recipient, said method comprising: 
 receiving a media message intended for communication to said recipient, wherein user equipment of said recipient is a mobile device and wherein said media message comprises non-text media; and    communicating said media message to said one or more recipients, wherein said non-text media is communicated to said recipient as one or more inline ASCII encoded binary assets.    
   
   
       19 . A server for facilitating the messaging of media between a sender and one or more recipients, said server configured to: 
 receive a media message intended for communication to said one or more recipients;    store said media message as a document remotely from user equipment of said sender and said one or more recipients;    communicate said media message to said one or more recipients; and    maintain said document in said remote storage subsequent to said communicating.    
   
   
       20 . User equipment having a client application residing in local memory, said client application configured to: 
 provide a user with the ability to generate a media message intended for communication to one or more recipients;    transmit said media message to a server, wherein said media message is stored remotely from said user equipment and user equipment of said one or more recipients and maintained in said remote storage subsequent to said media message being communicated to said one or more recipients.    
   
   
       21 . Computer readable media having computer-executable program code recorded thereon for performing the method comprising: 
 receiving a media message intended for communication to one or more recipients;    storing said media message as a document remotely from a sender of said media message and said one or more recipients;    communicating said media message to said one or more recipients; and    maintaining said document in said remote storage subsequent to said communicating.